How to hold down a nine-to-five without going up a waistband size.

The average British office worker spends a full five years of their life sat at a desk. This, it turns out, won’t do wonders for your health. Who knew? Perhaps you’re reading this at your desk right now, sedentary and concerned. You should be – sitting for long periods of time has been linked to obesity and heart attacks to the point that a few newspapers have branded sitting as “the new smoking”. Don’t quit your desk job just yet, though; it’s more than possible to reverse the slow transformation from salaryman to Jabba the Hutt by making some small tweaks to your working day. So, without further ado, here are a few steps to follow that will not only help to perk up your office mojo, but minimise the dangers of being deskbound.

Despite all the histrionic despair surrounding our sedentary lifestyles, it is possible to offset all the obesity and death with less effort than you may expect. Mr Ulf Ekelund, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sports Sciences and an honorary professor at Cambridge University, says: “If you do quite a lot of exercise, then your sitting hours are protected from many of the bad consequences associated with prolonged sitting. From research we did last year, we found that those who did about 60-75 minutes of physical, moderate-intensity activity every day, such as walking or cycling, didn’t have any increased risks from sitting, even if they sat for 8-10 hours a day.” This, however, doesn’t have to mean sweating on the treadmill or working on your bench press. “You don’t need to go to the gym; it’s okay to do some brisk walking in the evening or going for a bike ride, or active transportation to or from work.”

Mr Justin Eade, an active workplace consultant and the founder of wellness and movement innovation company Glimpse, says: “Many people suffer lower back pain with regards to sitting poorly or for too long or on inappropriate seating and also there can be fairly low awareness when it comes to correct posture. The good news is this can be changed quite quickly with some knowledge and awareness around maintaining and improving good posture.” Sitting right is, he explains, crucial: “If the lower part of the spine is un-supported while sitting or we sit on our tail bone with back curved in a C shape while sitting, this is pulling on muscles, connective-tissue and ligaments and will affect the spine in various unhelpful ways. For good posture, stick out your coccyx (tailbone) behind you rather than sitting on it.”

“If you have a seated job as many of us do, I would recommend trying to break up sitting every hour or even every half an hour if possible by standing up or maybe walking somewhere for one or two minutes. Walk to go and get some coffee, go to the bathroom, or do some sort of activity, at least every hour,” advises Mr Ekelund. Mr Eade agrees, and emphasises how taking breaks can actually increase productivity: “Although it can seem like the last thing you would do is walk away from your desk when you’re busy, quite often in fact this is exactly what your mind and body need most to be at their best; to be happy, productive focused and able to make good decisions.”

Pressure to get things done means a lot of us have got into the habit of cutting short our lunch breaks or dining al desko. While Mr Ekelund says that eating at your desk carries no health risks in itself, it’s important to keep to a strict routine. “There is much evidence for the benefits of having regular breakfast, lunch and dinner.” And while you may have thought keeping an energy-boosting bag of almonds on your desk, Mr Ekelund says this idea is a bad idea: “I would strongly recommend not snacking at your desk because you will likely increase your calorie intake quite substantially.”

As well as the physical impacts of being at a desk for prolonged periods, there are also risks to our mental health. “There can be impacts to mental health due in part to a lack of adequate screen breaks and working for too long processing and looking at information are quite comprehensive. It’s really vital to stop and walk away from your screen regularly – every 30 minutes if you can,” says Mr Eade. Still, while that might not sound like such a tall order, it’s easy to unstick our eyes from one screen only to glue them to another. “It’s important not to simply switch to looking at your smartphone instead. It’s still a screen. What the brain needs is a complete break from the screen for a few minutes.”